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Quantitative indices can only partially help in understanding vulnerability to climate change impacts. Research shows that eliciting cultural knowledge yields important insights into how social–ecological factors affect communities’ vulnerability.
Analysis of the sensitivity of marine pelagic biodiversity to past and contemporary climate change shows that even moderate future warming will accelerate changes already being observed, while severe warming will seriously impact biodiversity.
Empirical analysis of climate change debates in the US Congress shows that policymakers are most likely to seek out experts confirming their existing views. That information then gets disseminated among like-minded individuals in ‘echo chambers’.
Greenhouse-gas payback times are derived for biofuel production systems using five feedstocks under high- and low-input farm management to assess replacement of natural vegetation with crop-based biofuels. Estimates ranged from 1–162 years.
Rising water temperatures increase the susceptibility of reef-building corals to diseases caused by pathogens and to coral bleaching. Model projections indicate that disease is more likely to cause coral mortality than bleaching in coming decades.
Climate change enhances root exudation of organic compounds into soils and can lead to loss of soil carbon. Research now shows that oxalic acid (a common exudate) releases organic compounds from protective mineral associations.
The media uses specific language to report scientific knowledge to various audiences. A study focused on broadcast, newspapers and twitter reporting of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report shows that coverage and framing of the Report was influenced by its sequential three-part structure and by the availability of accessible narratives and visuals.
Cooling has been observed over the past century in the northern Atlantic, and this study presents multiple lines of evidence that suggest it may be a result of a reduction in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. The decrease in this circulation, particularly after 1970, seems to be unprecedented in the past millennium and melt from the Greenland Ice Sheet may be a contributing factor.
Africa’s savannahs and shrublands have been assumed to provide a large area for the expansion of cropland with relatively little damage to the environment. Research now shows that conversion would be likely to have high carbon and biodiversity costs.
Over half of the wood harvested globally is used as fuel. Unsustainable harvesting can deplete woody biomass, contributing to forest degradation, deforestation and climate change. A spatially explicit assessment of pan-tropical woodfuel supply and demand is used to estimate where harvest exceeds regrowth and the resultant GHG emissions for 2009.
The Mekong Delta in Vietnam is facing rising sea levels that are expected to exacerbate ongoing problems of saline intrusion into agricultural land. An assessment of hydrology, agriculture and human behaviour identifies the combination of adaptation strategies that are likely to yield the most effective results for those living in the Mekong Delta.
